Firstplanet Academy

Stefano Andreatta, aka Steno, DJ, producer and bass player, has worked on a house track built on essential elements. Its driving force is the vocal inserts from a very popular Loleatta Holloway track, “Love Sensation”, from the early days of house music and now on Firstplanet Academy, after “You Think” and “spingete Vigliacchi Che Non Sento l’Amore” tracks on Firstplanet. Steno started studying music at the age of 10 at a private school in his country and he learned classical guitar for 5 years, then he moved to some rhythm guitar courses; in meantime, he started playing in his first bands. Steno played the electric guitar up to 17 years and started to study bass guitar. He played in various clubs in his area as a bass player in a number of bands. In 2009, he started to approach the world of djing and set up his recording studio. In 2013, he stared with the electronic music world.What if Firstplanet had not existed?“The success of electronic music would probably not be at this level. And now? I have a lot of work in progress, but no names yet. My soul is rock, but my mind is electro. I listen to metal music and rock, from grunge to soul, above the blues, beyond the reggae, inside the house, techno, spiritual and Celtic mood”.How would you define your music style?“I do not identify with any other artist because, on account of my story, I produce in line with music standards that are not necessarily related to the genre that I produce”.

How do you feel about the collaboration with Firstplanet?“I’m very happy and proud to collaborate with the Gianfranco Bortolotti’s hub. For me, it’s an important goal that’s driving me to continue and improve my style and my music”.Do you think that the sound is evolving towards a more minimal and clean phase?“Less is more, that’s the basic message. Less instruments and more definition for the sound. And I think that in the next few years minimal music will meet with pop music, as it was for the music edm that met pop music evolving, so it will be also for the minimal, and we will have a minimal melodic”.Do you like artists who reflect their soul in music?“I can quote some names from the past, national and international artists, like Lucio Battisti, Adriano Celentano, Led Zeppelin, Ozzy Osburne, Johnny Cash, Annalisa and many more”.Please, tell us about “Love Sensation”.“This is my tribute to the greatest disco music queen. I wanted to give new life to this voice by bringing it into my world”.

Changing in part his main alias, Ten Words, Salvatore La Menza, now 10WS, has landed on Firstplanet Academy with an unpublished version of a track that was released last year on UMM label. Deep Inside Mix version of “Eighteen” aligns the sound on new frequencies, preserving some details from the original track and, as announced in the title, providing an iconic sample of the past, i.e. “Deep Inside” is conceived by Hardrive.

Paulo Moya is a DJ, producer, youtuber and promoter based in Helsinki, Finland. He has released a track superimposing several cultural styles on Firstplanet Academy: “Men Don’t Think”. House, techno, electro: leveraging on each of these music genres, this artist has forged a track with different rhythm breaks to add value to the already captivating sound.Has Firstplanet in some way changed or enriched your life as a producer?“I’m waiting to see what impact Firstplanet can generate”.What’s the best record ever, in your opinion?“’Exit’ by Tangerine Dream and ‘RadioActivity’ by Kraftwerk”.Please list some of your latest works. Any “work in progress”, new production, ready to go?“My ‘Subtanasia EP’: dark grooves and hypnotic sounds with an exquisite video production available on Youtube. I love techno, intelligent techno, acid, electro, ambient, new wave and classical Music (not opera)”.How do you think the sound could evolve and be played in big live events?“Massive events are for massive crowds, to be honest, I do not go to big live events, I don’t like the music that they play. Actually, I do not interact properly with other humans. I prefer my dark room with the synth. In terms of music, production must keep working on Intelligent sounds and deep dark grooves”.Is there an artist that inspires you or that you particularly admire?“Emmanuel Top, Dj Misjah and the original Josh Wink. All of them have the same factor: basic technology and massive creativity. Actually, I do not remember any contemporary techno track that makes the people screaming in ecstasy (because of the music, not the pill) while the dance floor becomes an earthquake. That was a unique experience with tracks like ‘I Am Ready’ (Josh Wink), ‘Keep Your Love’ (Dj Misjah), ‘Turkish Bazar’ (Emmanuel Top). Where is my time travelling machine? Give me one more night like that, please”.When was your first studio experience?“Around my 14. Recording an old oil tank (for around 200 litres) that I was hitting with 2 sticks, it was my first Industrial band experience, in my mind I was doing something like Einstürzende Neubauten. My first live set at 16 in Santiago of Chile with 50 records in my bag. Djing 5 Hours non-stop”.

From Italy with love, Riccardo Tavarelli is the producer behind the nickname 40Thavha. Groove lover and progressive house expert, trance music supporter, winking at the big room EDM sound, 40Thavha in his “Antico”, on Firstplanet Academy, perfectly summarizes all these genres, unveiling a tight rhythm, masterly dotted with a maze of fine melodies resulting into a unique, heavenly and relaxing break with a rare and special climax.

Pietro “Moko” Allegrini is an Italian DJ and producer that has chosen Firstplanet Academy to present the first track. Pietro has signed up with a new artist name: Thaiga. Featuring Bianca Po, “Because Of You” is a crossover house music song with a real funky vibe. There are three versions available for DJs and fans, all coming from the original idea: a tribute to a creative scene that was particularly popular in the late ‘90s early 2000s. A house music track with a funky mood spin in the infamous e-label world, conceived, engineered and designed by Gianfranco Bortolotti.

Ten Words dedicates this track to the instrument that became popular between the late ‘60s and the first half of the ‘70s, i.e. the forerunner of samplers. In his “Mellotron”, progressive melodies and techno rhythms flow on a horizon of atmospheres with a touch of trance music, providing the whole project with a truly unique and special mood. All this on Firstplanet Academy, the engineered e-label from the Media Records EVO world.

Salvatore La Menza is Ten Words. His electronics are house music and tech-house that blend with techno. Ten Words was already released on UMM and he is always working on new singles and e.p. for Media Records EVO labels.

“I’m not a DJ categorizing music in a manic way”, says Ten Words. “An amazing electronic music has the house and techno genres as its common vision: so, if I really have to define my sound, I can say that it’s an emotional style full of meanings, from the feminine soul to the male charge and production”.

Firstplanet is the first totally automated e-label in the world: it’s 100% engineered, it uses its artificial intelligence to speed up every type of procedure, from the first selection of tracks – that are now so many – to uploads and the contracts on tracks. Globally, this is a major step forward in the production management.

Now Firstplanet is in triple effect: Firstplanet, Firstplanet Academy and Firstplanet Pro.
Firstplanet is the first step to land on its e-label. A dynamic, transversal label, the right gym for those approaching the world of production.

Firstplanet Academy is the step that an artist must take to access the professional world.Firstplanet Pro is the flagship of FP galaxy, the destination for any talented artists who, for one reason or another, are not with the Premium and Main labels of Media Records EVO world.

Firstplanet stargate has been specially designed to access the world of Media Records EVO labels: the first step, the mandatory passage, the careful approach, the test, the entrance examination to the upper floors of the new international discography; in recent weeks it has reached 500 DJs in its own roster.

The record labels of Media Records Group reorganized by splitting into Premium Labels and Main Labels.

Premium labels include glorious brands, such as BXR, Claxixx, UMM, Tarantula Music and Neurals: thus converging interests, attention, energy and communication on these entities that are very close to techno and electronic music, bass, and up to trance.

Main labels are: Heartbeat, Heartbeat Black, EDMedia, Futurenoize and Underground to satisfy lovers of the house, the big room, the “lento violento” (“slow violent” style) bordering into the experimental area.

Beatrice Florenzio is hidden behind Kaishi, an oriental name. She’s attracted to bass music, she forges her own style, combining bassline, grime, jungle, drum n bass and hip hop. This great legacy has resulted into “LovinU”, the first track in Firstplanet Academy catalogue. Signs of speed garage and 2 step are also there.

How did you create “LovinU”?“I wanted to recreate those sounds that, from the drum’n’bass, brought me to fall in love with UK garage and start playing it, but that I had not yet been able to create in my production. Everything started from the classic tour a little ’90s dance (my other great passion), if I may say so. And that’s how it started”.How would you define the genre of “LovinU”? It looks like a mix of 2 steps, techno and bass house.“Mainly, we can define a UK garage / 2step piece, sometimes soulful, with a vocal R & B, genre that I love. I’m glad you said bass house too, because it’s part of the genre circle that inspires me for my production and I’ve been very close to it lately in terms of sound, probably already there with in ‘LovinU’”.In addition to several single tracks, are you working on an album too?“Not right now. I have already planned a series of collaborations with UK artists, some are ready, and probably an E.P. I do not feel yet ready for an album, perhaps I see it as a somewhat presumptuous and the next step in my artistic career. I think I still have to tell people who Kaishi really is and I also need to be sure that they appreciate and understand my album”.You are very close to the underground UK. Why do you love this sound so much?“It all started when I discovered drum’n’bass. In fact, before Kaishi, I played for many years d’n’b in a collective that I founded, the Pinknoise Kollective. I was a teenager and I just started to go to parties with jungle and d’n’b legends, so I fell in love with this genre and started playing. I went to London and Bristol many times; my music partner used to live there at the time. I learned about the music scene, not only in the UK, and I discovered other sounds that had a huge influence on me”.

How did you approach the Firstplanet world?“Thanks to Stefano B, I met him at the time of Pinknoise Kollective. I sent him ‘LovinU’, he knew I was looking for an Italian label to release it and he suggested Firstplanet”.How do you see your sound in the next few years?“A sound … my own sound, that is the fusion of all my passions and background, as I’m trying to do now. Lately I’m producing tracks with darker sounds, recalling dnb, dubstep and electro, halfway between the UK bass and US bass, a little influenced by my latest experience in Los Angeles, but this will not exclude more melodic tracks in the future. Because I am like that, halfway between dark and the harmony, this is Kaishi”.

Short bio. Kaishi took her first steps into the music world as a dancer, later as a graffiti artist where she dsicovered her love for hip hop music. She started as a DJ many years later, as member and founder of an all-female drum’n’bass collective, Pinknoise Kollective.